Exiles Syria

June 13, 2000 | MARJORIE MILLER and JOHN DANISZEWSKI, TIMES STAFF WRITERS

As foreign dignitaries and the world's media poured into this insular capital Monday on the eve of President Hafez Assad's state funeral, the first public challenge emerged to the well-oiled plan for passing the mantle of leadership to his son Bashar.

June 13, 2000 | MARJORIE MILLER and JOHN DANISZEWSKI, TIMES STAFF WRITERS

As foreign dignitaries and the world's media poured into this insular capital Monday on the eve of President Hafez Assad's state funeral, the first public challenge emerged to the well-oiled plan for passing the mantle of leadership to his son Bashar.

Three years ago, a note appeared at Lita Kaseer's door. It contained a bullet and a one-word message: "Leave." Kaseer fled, along with hundreds of other Christian families in the Dora neighborhood in southwest Baghdad, once a vibrant Christian community. This year, she returned home from Syria, and on Thursday, attended Christmas Mass with her husband and 7-month-old son. "It's always better to come home," said her husband, Khalid Kamil, 34. "In any other place, you are a stranger. . . .